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The last week has seen numerous reports about how wild animals like wolves, lynxes and bears have returned to the Czech Republic. Organisations monitoring these animals like Friends of the Earth say there are small numbers in places like the Beskydy Mountains on the Slovak border. Jan Velinger spoke to the group’s Miroslav Kutal who spent the weekend in the field monitoring their numbers.

Chances are that you are familiar with the inane, smiling face of the Good Soldier Švejk – one of Czech literature’s most famous characters – immortalized in the sketches of artist Josef Lada. Well, Švejk has been sent back to the drawing board, perhaps somewhat controversially. Jaroslav Hašek’s literary hero has been redesigned by artist Petr Urban, a man famous for his bawdy cartoons often featuring beer and busty women. The new edition of Švejk is being brought out by XYZ Publishers - its boss, Robert Kubánek, explains his choice of

The future of the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty was the main issue on the agenda when Czech President Václav Klaus played host to his Polish counterpart Lech Kaczynski on Thursday. The media speculation was that the Polish president was on a mission to persuade the euro-sceptic Mr Klaus to tone down his marked opposition to Lisbon. If that was the case, it was mission unaccomplished.

Leader of the Greens, Martin Bursík, has a challenger for the post. On Wednesday, one of the environment minister’s most outspoken critics, Dana Kuchtová, said that she would stand against him in a vote to be held in September. Ms Kuchtová has accused Martin Bursík of not listening to party members, and dragging the Greens too far right. The feud between two of the Green Party’s most prominent members has been going on for months, but is Mrs Kuchtová’s decision to stand for party head personally, or politically, motivated? That’s what I asked political

Since last year, the government has been slowly preparing the ground for the transformation and eventual sale of the state-owned brewer Budějovický Budvar. Originally, the government hoped to sell the famous brewery – worth an estimated 1.3 billion euros – by the end of its term, but now it appears the preparations won’t be completed before mid-2010. Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek made clear on Tuesday that the government would rather delay the company’s sale, rather than rush a deal, in order to ensure the brand’s survival into the future.

The American musician Tom Waits has won legions of fans around the world with his distinctive, growl-like voice and evocative lyrics. This week, Czech music lovers finally got to see the singer live for the first time, when he played two sold-out shows at Prague’s Congress Centre. I caught the second concert, on Tuesday.

Public broadcaster Český Rozhlas or Czech Radio is financing an unusual project – the attempted recovery of a WWII tank rumoured to be lost somewhere at the bottom of the river Labe (or Elbe). Diving teams are trawling through the river hoping to find a lost artefact from the past.

Czech drivers have a reputation of being aggressive, speeding and taking unnecessary risks. As a result, the country has one of the worst accident rates in Europe with around 1,200 people killed on the roads each year. A tough new points system intended to improve road safety introduced two years ago had only a temporary effect, and the number of fatalities soon returned to previous levels. The Transport Ministry is now trying a different tack – it wants to shock drivers into exercising greater caution, commissioning a series of TV spots with realistic

On Tuesday organisers in Prague launched the official tender for the design of the Czech entry at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, a site to be visited by an estimated 30,000 people every day for six months from May – December 2010. From now until the autumn, Czech firms - in tandem with top designers, artists and architects - will be able to put forward proposals for the Czech site. There is one limitation: unlike Expos in the 1960s and earlier, they will not be designing an entire pavilion but will operate within a given space in an industrial hall.

Prague is one of the best preserved cities in Europe, and it is not unusual to come across a striking variety of architectural styles – from Baroque to functionalism – in the space of a few minutes. But how has the Czech capital fared when it comes to contemporary architecture? It is the subject of a new exhibition entitled The New Face of Prague, which has just opened at the city’s Czech Centre.